Keeping An Eye On MonitoringThe Ins & Outs Of Data Center Environmental Monitoring & Security
By Kurt Marko - Processor - Vol.28 Issue 34
Mention "monitoring" in a word association game with most IT professionals and chances are they will immediately think of traditional system management software and the administrative processes that go with it. However, servers and network devices are sensitive and require a controlled physical environment for reliable performance, and while most businesses realize the necessity of a properly designed data center or computer room for their critical IT infrastructure, unless the facility itself is monitored for proper environmental conditions, the systems might as well be under someone’s desk. The need for data center environmental monitoring may be best summed up by Mark Twain’s folksy aphorism: "Put all your eggs in the one basket, and watch that basket!"
Facilities mishaps, while admittedly rare, can have devastating consequences to businesses’ continuity-particularly SMEs that often cannot afford redundant systems in a secondary data center. A single incident can take down multiple machines or an entire network, causing days of downtime. Recent high-profile disasters such as Hurricane Katrina have had a profound effect on disaster preparedness. According to Michael Sigourney, senior product specialist for AVTECH Software, "IT managers have passed a critical ‘tipping point’ where the mindset is switching from disaster recovery to disaster prevention." AVTECH, and a host of competitors, provide the products necessary for IT professionals to "watch their baskets" and quickly respond to problems before they become disasters.
Types Of Environmental Monitoring
Data center designers such as Peter Sacco, president of the engineering firm PTS Data Center Solutions, make a distinction between two levels of environmental monitoring, each catering to different needs and concerns. Facilities monitoring, typically done by building management staff, looks at the macroscopic condition of a building (for example, is the HVAC system working?), while IT environmental monitoring consists of more localized measurement of those physical parameters most critical to data center operations.
The most important environmental parameters or events for IT operations are air temperature and humidity, airflow, smoke, and floor water (flood)-the most critical being air temperature. To appreciate the importance of fine-grained temperature measurements, it helps to understand how modern computer rooms are laid out. Nowadays most equipment is rack-mounted and, according to Sacco, the archetypical layout calls for a "hot aisle, cold aisle" rack array with air flowing through the equipment from front to back. (See the "Typical Data Center Air Flow" diagram.)
Sacco stresses that in this configuration air inlet temperature is the key element to be controlled. Low-power or less dense equipment can be monitored using only one temperature sensor per rack, placed according to ASRAE (American Society of Heating Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers) standards at three-fourths the way from the floor, while high-density equipment such as blade servers may require two or three sensors per rack. Given the diffusive nature of humidity, one sensor per room is generally adequate, while flood sensors should be placed near known water sources.
Monitoring Product Trends
Three trends are apparent in the environmental monitoring market: wireless sensors, video surveillance, and enhanced event notification software.
Wireless devices, such as AVTECH’s Room Alert 26W (www.AVTECH.com), decouple sensors from the monitoring hub. While the hub appliance is still hardwired to a network, it acts like a Wi-Fi access point, communicating wirelessly with external sensors. Although the communication scheme and reception range (several hundred feet indoors) resembles a wireless network, the hubs and sensors operate on a proprietary frequency and protocol, not accessible by Wi-Fi clients.
Coupling cameras to environmental sensors was pioneered by NetBotz (now a unit of APC) to create what Chris Gaskins, APC’s security and environmental product line manager, terms "physical threat monitoring." He notes that adding the ability to view video from any sensor location allows SMEs, many of which don’t have NOCs (network operation centers) manned 24/7, to quickly assess the significance of a sensor alert-in his example, "is it a busted water pipe, or did someone spill a Coke on the floor?"--and tailor the response appropriately. While NetBotz has been the most enthusiastic adopter of video monitoring, incorporating cameras into all of its products, most other vendors can integrate discrete network (IP) cameras with their monitoring hubs and software.
While not as revolutionary as wireless sensors and video feeds, environmental monitoring software continues to evolve in functionality and improve integration with third-party devices. Sigourney looks upon AVTECH’s monitoring software, PageR Enterprise (www.AVTECH.com), as a "secret weapon." He notes, "Monitoring is only a part of the solution; there must be a mechanism for immediate alert notification" using a variety of methods. Because Sacco at PTS felt monitoring and notification was of such importance, and given the problems of integrating third-party switches and sensors, his company developed a proprietary package called SIMA that can aggregate data and traps from virtually any sensor.
It’s not enough for SME IT departments to only monitor hardware; they must carefully watch a data center’s environmental conditions in order to keep small problems from turning into major disasters. While most building management departments do some rudimentary level of environmental monitoring, it’s not adequate for IT needs--lacking the detailed parameters, level of measurement granularity, or integration with IT notification systems. Filling this need are a number of vendors providing dedicated monitoring hardware augmented by sophisticated event detection and notification applications. With new product features such as the integration of video monitors and wireless sensor connectivity, the value of environmental monitoring has never been more compelling.
AVTECH Software, Inc.